Upgrade available
by schak
Summary: You want a story where Ren and Kyoko get together fast and you can read pure fluff? That skips the long part before that and how it effects everybody else? Well that's not this story. Give it a try.
1. Chapter 1

Showbiz is a hard way to earn your money. You are in a constant competition with lots of people who would sell their souls to the devil to get one real chance. Everybody tries to show that they are special, that they are something new and exciting. You have to fight and better yourself all the time. And hell you really don't want to do this alone. That is why you search for an agency to help you, with pretty much everything. Negotiating the contract for a project, looking for promising castings, and making sure you won't be taken advantage of.

Good agencies protect you while you make your way, great agencies show you how you can develop.

LME is one of the biggest and the best. If you get into LME you have already taken a big step towards your dream. They are very good at seeing potential and helping you shine. LME is an agency with an open hierarchy where even the president takes personal interest in the development of his talents, whether it is the big star that already made it or the fresh newbie who is still at the beginning. With this mindset...

The tv turned black.

"Um... President? The video hasn't ended yet." A soft voice remarked.

"Boring.", was the answer to that. The president turned with his chair around with a trow away gesture to the tv.

"Em... What?" It was not more than a stutter by now.

"It's boring as hell. We are one of the biggest entertainment agencies in Japan, what am I saying, in _Asia_ and powerful enough that even Hollywood would think twice before they messed with us. We have some of the most creative people in this county. And this is the best we can come up with? I won't allow that on my homepage." The president banged his fist down on his table, his eyes and voice filled with steel, fixating on the two employees in front of him. You see, the eccentric president is not only a man who enjoys strange costumes, medling with his talents' love lives, and batshit crazy ideas like the LoveMe section. He is also a man who build an entertainment empire out of nothing.

"Where are the colours, the music, the fun, the dancing, the fire? Where is the LOVE?" All seriousness from just a moment before was gone. Replaced with big, silly hand gestures and sparkles in his eyes, and was there firework behind him or was that just a trick of mind.

Well, he still is a guy, around 50 years old, who loves to play dating Sims games and loves it even more to play it with real people. BUT he can only do that because he worked very hard in the past and still overlooks everything and steps in if he sees the necessity for it. And he has a hell of an instinct for this business. That and he is very good at taking on employees who are good at their job and loyal to LME.

But his quite special ways are a bit strange and sometimes overwhelming to people not used to it, like Hirotaka Honda, a young man 26 years old, fresh from the art and design university in Kyoto. Still with the giddy feeling in the stomach of getting this great job so soon, he had worked on the promoting video, with his head filled with theories about management, marketing and advertisement. The problem here is just that sometimes, knowledge stands in the way of creativity. A bit like actually knowing how physics works kills the joy of watching a good action movie with the nagging voice in the back of your head saying, this would never work in real life. And now imagine how the guy who has to think up these action scenes has to feel. He has to know the physics and then has to purposely ignore them. And then think up a way of breaking it down to something that actually works and at last find a way to fool the viewers into seeing something that isn't there.

This describes Hirotaka's dilemma in a way. He still has to learn how to use his knowledge as a powerful tool and ignore it at the same time. He has heard something like this from his new co-workers. But he still hasn't the slightest idea what it means. He wondered what exactly everybody is going to expect from him, while he watched his tall boss giving a quite heated speech about love, while being in an original samurai costume throwing heart shaped confetti.

_/Where did that even come from?/_, he silently wondered.

"Of course. We will redo it right now." His co-worker and mentor next to him replied, effectively stopping the president from making them listen further for an hour or more to him. They backed out of the room very fast and both took a relieved breath once they were back in the elevator.

"Is he always like this?", Hirotaka asked in a shaking voice, still extremely confused, staring at his mentor.

"I fear the answer to that is: most the time. Takarada-sama is very eccentric and loves to be dramatic.", he answered with a heavy sigh.

"Is it bad that we have to redo everything?" Hirotaka felt panic strike him suddenly. He was still on probation. Was he going to lose his job over this?

"Don't worry about it, Honda-kun. Nobody ever managed to meet his expectations the first time. I knew, we would have to redo it. But I thought, it would be good for you to get this meeting past you as soon as possible. Sorry." He looked at his mentor, a middle-aged, short man with a soft belly and salt and pepper hair. The man looked truly sorry for putting him through this. And he started to see, why his mentor would think this way.

"That's fine, I think." And it was. Some lessons you probably have to experience for yourself... Even if it will take him a day or two to get over this... whatever this was.

Together they left the elevator, both lost in their own thoughts.

What's the point of this, you may ask. And is this new character important to the story? He is from Kyoto, does that mean he knows Kyoko and is a long forgotten friend and possible love interest?

The answer to these interesting questions are so unspectacular, that they are given right here.

No, he is no love interest for Kyoko, nor did they ever meet before, it's a big city. But he met Sho one time, when Sho with 13 years old and played at an open stage event in a bar. A bar in which Hirotaka met with some friends. Not that he can tell you, because at that time he was quite drunk and tried to pick a girl up with some truly ridiculous pick-up lines. Well, what you you say, the world is a village.

But is he important?

No. He might be later used to show events in the story from an unrelated point of view.

So what's the point of all this and this new character if he is unimportant?

There is none apart from the fact that the author realized that her story opening sounded like a badly made promoting video.

Now that you lost some minutes that you will never get back, let's start with the real story.

A floor lower, Takarada's three unwilling messengers of love got into the elevator and animatedly discussed today's workload and Sawara's message to come to his office.

"Why do you think Sawara-san wants to see all of us?" Kyoko looked at the other two in a way, as if she hoped that they have some deeper insight into her department head's mind, "I mean his message didn't have any hints in it."

The others, unsurprisingly, didn't have any hidden knowledge and messages like this ones were highly suspicious. "Hopefully it's not a stupid LoveMe mission again." Kanae announced and added some more mumbling about stupid presidents, loud children and other stuff.

"Then at least it's with Sawara-san and not Takarada-sama. He is more reasonable and the really crazy stuff the president would want to give out himself, right?", Chiori chipped in. All three pink cursed ones looked somewhat relieved about this lack of self-engagement on the President's part.

"Oh yeah. Let's be thankful for the small miracles in life.", Kanae agreed with little euphony.

"Hmm, you are probably right, Moko-san."

Once they arrived at their destination, they carefully opened the door, after they took a moment in front of it to take a deep breath and to give and to seek for moral support from the others. Kanae and Chiori let Kyoko take the lead for two main reasons. One is that Sawara was most afraid of her and because of that was a bit more cautious to throw extremely strange stuff their way, and two, paradoxically he was most fond of her as well and would be more likely to take pity on her than on the other two.

By the way the not-main reason for her going in first is that this is LME and you never know what exactly awaits you on the other side of that door or any door at all, when you are in the LoveMe section, so it never hurts to have a living shield that you can feed to the wolves while running away. Please don't think badly about those two, they would feel guilty about it, just not enough to not do it again. The reason why Kyoko let them do that is she has too big a heart and couldn't refuse her friends anything. The other thing is that she, irrelevant to the fact the she is the longest in the ... (Please dear reader insert a fitting word of your choice here) LoveMe section, still desperately held onto her optimistic view on life.

But even she couldn't completely banish the uncomfortable feeling in her guts, while she spoke to her department head. "You wanted to see us, Sawara-san?"

"Ah yes. Come in, come in." He didn't look or sounded uncomfortable. Which is generally taken as a good sign by the girls, because they are unpleasant, mostly to him as the nearest person, when given unpleasant work, which in consideration of the Pavlovian reflex makes him start to feel uncomfortable when faced with the task of giving them unpleasant tasks. He actually looked quite relaxed and kind of happy. Normally a good indicator that he believed something good for their careers was heading their way. They may not let their guard down easily, but they relaxed slightly.

Still Kanae couldn't keep the hostile tone out of her voice, as she asked, "Do you have new offers for us?"

"I fear not. But I managed to secure some training spots for you guys. It is always good to list a variation of skills on your applications. It shows you are able to adapt to new skills and boost your chances with specialized roles a lot." Looking from Sawara's uneasy smile to each other, they decide it's not so bad. They could give it a chance and hear the man out.

"What kind of training are we talking about?", Kyoko asked further, adopting a more open body language.

"Oh I have three different kinds here. You can decide for yourselves who does which." He sounded more sure of himself now, more professional and least like somebody, who could at ever second, hid under this desk, crying for help.

He took out a couple of paper and started to read them to the girls. The idea to do this came to him, when he had done something similar for one of his other talents. One who hadn't been in LME for nearly as long as them. With a start this made him realize, that he had neglected his manager job towards Kyoko and ones the president noticed him doing it, he thought that it was a wonderful and lovely gesture, that he should do this for the other two members, too, so they don't feel left out.

"First we have a traditional training. You will learn how to wear a kimono correctly, to prepare a tea ceremony, how to walk and talk, flower arranging and some historical lessons." Each took one of the offered papers and glanced at it, or in the case of Kanae, memorized it.

"Next we have motorcycle lessons. The people you will learn from are stuntmen. So you will learn how to drive for the camera and maybe even some easy stunts. Furthermore they have a little repair shop and will teach you..." he made a short pause here and looked a bit unsure, "how to use some tools." The second paper they got had a lot less written on it and the wording showed that Sawara didn't write these papers, but asked those who offered the training to write a summary.

The top of the paper said Motorcycle lessons and below it under the point Main Skills they wrote: learning how to drive a motorcycle. The next point should have given information about how those skills will be taught and the answer simply said: let them drive a motorcycle. There was an unwritten "dude" obviously implied. By Side Skills they listed: how to use tools, so you won't look stupid when you have to do it for the camera. So all together not the most informant piece of paper.

"Well last but not least voice training and musical education." This paper was once again very detailed about what will be taught and how. "You will learn how to sing different styles of music, be it modern pop, hip-hop or classic. You will learn how to read notes and how to recognize them when you hear them. If you are interested you can learn how to play an instrument too." The paper held a list with lots of different instruments to choose from. "There is one spot for each option. I will let you girls choose what you want to do."

_/Please God, don't let them fight about this. I wouldn't be able to break up a catfight between them!/_ This fear didn't exactly result from dealing with specifically these three girls, but from many years in an industry that put everyone in competition with everybody else. This results in an atmosphere of back stabbing and mistrust.

The LoveMe girls looked at each others, seemingly communicating telepathically and turned back to Sawara completely synchronous. "Can we discuss this for a moment?" Kyoko took up the position of spokeswoman for the thee.

"Sure, take your time. How about you take this to your LoveMe room and give me an answer at, let's say 3 o'clock. All of the options will take a lot of time to learn and we will expect a lot of engaged learning from you." He offered them with an eager smile. This only had advantages for Sawara. One, they would leave his office. Two, for some strange reasons he could breath a lot easier without them being there. Three, he wouldn't need to be in the same room as them. Four, should they fight about the offers, he wouldn't be anywhere close to it. Five, any unexplainable thing, that trend to happen around those thee especially Kyoko, would destroy the LoveME lounge and not his workplace. Now if that sound all like the same reason, that he wants them out of his office, you are completely right, but Sawara didn't give a damn.

After they left his office Sawara sank into his chair with a relieved sigh. Dealing with those three always felt a bit like a lottery to him. They often reacted in ways that are unpredictable and strange. Not that he can really hold this against them. If he was a plaything to all of the president's whims, he probably would have trust issues too.

* * *

A.N.

First things first. I have no rights on Skip Beat or any non original characters. I don't make any profit with this and only to it to improve my writing skills and my English.

Secondly, Matelia-legwll has agreed to be my beta reader. And thus this chapter has been edited by her now.

Last thing, what do you guys think about it so far? Leave a review and help me to improve. Thank you.


	2. Chapter 2

If you have to make an important decision, take a second to look at the environment where you have to make it.

Are you alone in the decision-making process or are there other people in it too?

What personal relationship do you have to the other ones?

What are their aims? Are you on the same side? Do you even need different sides?

What are the strengths of the different people? Who is more of the creative free mind? Who keeps an eye on it if it is makeable? Who is the mediator?

At what point of the decision-making are you? Are the choices clear or are you still in a creative process?

How comfortable are you and the others in your direct surrounding?

What time of the day is it?

All this and more are important factors to consider when you have to make a decision. Once you know all this you can try to change the environment to secure that the odds are in your favor. Your aim is, that there shouldn't be a decision today? Leave them hungry. It makes people aggressive and less likely to make a compromise.

If you want a decision, give them food. If you want them creative, give them some light snacks, nothing too heavy. You don't think with a full stomach.

And there are one hundred more things that are notable, but it would take too long to mention all of them here.

Why do you read this?

Well, first so that you, dear readers, can have this comfy feeling of not having waste your time procrastinating. No you've learned some kind of useful stuff, so no reason to feel guilty. You can thank me later. Apart from that it should show that making a decision is not an easy task.

Oh, and it shows, if you have the opportunity, always choose flipping a coin or drawing sticks. It's much simpler and half the time it leads to as good results as all the other stuff.

One look at the LoveMe lounge makes one thing painfully obvious. Whoever was in charge of designing the lounge didn't actually seem to have thought about any of those previous advises. To be precise this room didn't seem as there had been any thinking involved at all. It has been a recently new idea from the president, that LME needs a love headquarters. This room is the (in)glorious result.

The room was big and divided in three areas. The right side was a small area separated with a curtain from the rest. Behind it were the bright pink lockers and the changing area had a small bathroom. There were 8 lockers by the way and this single fact creeped the hell out of the LoveMe girls and gave nightmares to Sawara, because they suspect, that this represents Lori Takaras developing plans for the LoveMe section. (And when it says nightmares, that's completely true. There have been nights when Sawara woke up in a cold sweat and started mumbling something along the lines: 'There are eight. Eight...' This happens often enough, that Mrs. Sawara by now takes care of avoiding the number eight in their daily life.) Each locker had a heart-shaped nameplate. Nobody dares to look at the five empty ones. Artists are naturally superstitious and they really don't want to provoke bad luck. The curtain is the only black thing in this room, due to the fact that it was installed by the girls and sponsored by Sawara two days after the opening. The idea that a sign, that can be switched between 'come in and let us help you 3' and 'just a short moment and we will help you' is the only thing to prevent somebody from walking in on them changing, sounds like a catastrophe waiting to happen or worst a matchmaking plan.

Directly opposite of the door were three desks. They were white with a big pink heart with the LoveMe logo on them. Every single piece of office equipment was in the same screaming LoveMe pink as the uniforms. Where those were found will hopefully remain a mystery to humanity forever and ever.

The last part of the room was a living space with a pink plush sofa and armchairs with plush hearts as cushions. In the middle stood a pink heart-shaped coffee table. All this furniture was the reason it took so long to set this room up. They were all special ordered and made, because no-one had this kind of...of abnormal things in stock, anywhere in the world. This was the part of the room the LoveMe troop stubbornly tried to make comfortable, which mostly involved throwing white blankets (they were forbidden to use black again) over everything. And putting iconic movie posters on the walls to cover up the rosé wall paint that had 'I love you' written in every language known to mankind on it and some they suspect that he made up.

All in all the room was, with its penetrate single-mindedness, more fitting as a love hotel room (and before somebody mention the lack of a bed, there is enough space on desks, sofas and against walls, be creative) than a workplace. But the specie of man can fast adapt to even the most hostile environment. By now they set a bowl with fruits on the table and keep some water bottles and different kinds of juice next to the sofa.

'Mo, if he wants us to decide on those training spots he shouldn't make us run around this building all day.'

The trio flopped down in their sitting area and stretched quit passionately. None of them looked the tiniest bit motivated to do much of anything, least of all make any important decisions.

'I don't think I can feel my arms anymore.', Chiori whined, while hanging over the armrest like an old sack of beans.

'Hmm.' Kyoko nodded in agreement and tried to rub her own neck.

In this moment the trio looked like death (and they felt like cheap takeout that was three days old and heated up again) and they didn't do much of anything apart of existing for the next ten minutes or so. Please notice, they are still actresses and should somebody open the door they would look presentable within half a second, well as presentable as you can, while wearing shocking, eye-cancer causing pink uniforms. But that's not the point.

'We should look at those papers.' Chiori's voice was muffled from speaking into the cushion of her armchair.

'Yes, we should.' Nobody was moving.

'I mean like, we should really do this, like now.' Still, no high body-function than the purely life-preserving ones were observable in this room.

They spend ten more minutes in this vegetative state, until Kyoko righted herself up with a loud and pathetic groan. 'You want something to drink, too?'

'Uh, yeah.' Was the long drawn answer she received.

Each armed with a glass of water they returned to the land of the living.

'Uff, we really have to do this now. Ok let's do this.' They took out the papers and slowly, slowly started reading them.

'Mo, give me something to eat. NO! Not the stupid banana, you bought them, you are going to eat them, I'm not going to get fat from them!' Kyoko giggled a bit at her best friend outburst and passed her an apple, then peeled the banana for herself.

'You want something, too?'

'I'll get it myself don't worry.' Chiori took some grapes and they all chewed silently while finally reading.

Kyoko only took a quick glance at the paper for the tea ceremony classes and put it away. She contrasted on the other two papers, well one of the papers still didn't offer any real information, but she at least tried. She unsurprisingly didn't find any more hidden info on that piece of paper.

'Are you guys done?', Kanae asked. She had finished after just one or two minutes and waited for her friends to get there.

'Yeah.'

' Yes.'

'Oh, but you didn't even looked at that offer, Kyoko-sama.' Koyko blushed a little bit, as she always does when Chiori called her Sama or Sempai.

'I already know the tea ceremony and all the other stuff they offer to teach in that class. So I'm not really interested in it.'

'You know all that? Where and when did you learned it?' Kyokos comment had peeked Kanaes interest. She was Kyokos best friend, why the hell didn't she know this? She should know about something like this, probably, maybe, she wasn't completely sure. This whole best friend thing and knowing everything about each other was confusing sometimes. She was sure she should know the important stuff, was something like this important?

'Oh, I started learning this when I was very young, maybe four or five and for a couple of years.' Kyoko replied uneasily. She didn't want to talk about how that idiot's family took her in and taught her how to be his bride.

'Oh really, I wouldn't have thought you knew something like this. Does Sawara-san know this? He didn't comment on it earlier.' Chiori replied cheerfully.

/It was long ago. It's probably not that important./

'Hmm. I'm not sure. I don't think we ever talked about it. Maybe I should do that sometime. Or maybe Yashiro-san or Tsuruga-san already told him.' Kyoko tipped against her chin when she answered.

'Why does Tsuruga knows about this?' /Before me? That's not ok! I definitely should know this, if he knows it. I'm her best friend, he shouldn't know more about her than me, mo!/

'Oh, it was on one of my first LoveMe jobs, before you guys were here. I was on one of his sets and there was a tea ceremony and yeah... it came up.'

Kanae only got more pissed when being reminded, that he technically knew Kyoko longer than she has. She knew it was irrational to feel this kind of rivalry towards him, but she couldn't help it. And snowball chance in hell, that she will lose to him.

'Hmpf, enough of that. So you don't want or need it. So one of us', she pointed to Chiori and herself,'is going to do it. We just have to figure out who. Let's start with that.'

'Good idea, Kanae-san. Do you really want it? Because I don't really care.'

'Me neither. Do you think it will benefit you in the future? For what kind of roles do you need this training?'

All three shouted out the first things that came to their mind.

'In historical dramas and movies.'

'Rich, traditional Ojou-sama from an old family.'

'Family drama.'

'Culture crash dramas.'

'Horror movies.' This earned Chiori a strange look from the other two.

'Ok, ok. So who of us is more likely to get one of those roles? I mean, whose type does it suits more?'

'Hmm, Chiori-san is the sweet and cute type of girl and you, Moko-chan, are a traditional Japanese beauty. I could see both of you in some of the roles.'

'Not helpful. But who did it fit more?'

'Hey, but fitting best into the role doesn't mean that one of us should get it. When fitting a role very well, the director maybe would give us time and instruction to learn it.'

'But our types aren't so uncommon in this industry. I mean, being beautiful or cute is a prerequisite to become an actress.'

We will cut this discussion a bit short, because it kept going for twenty more minutes. They listed everything that could be important in this and looked at all the points from different kinds of angles. It was a very reasonable and friendly discussion in a well-known environment. And it was completely and totally unproductive. It kept going until:

'Mo! Shut up, both of you. We are running in circles here.' Kanae had jumped up from the sofa, when she shouted at her surprised friends. With some hectic she searched her pockets, until she held something directly in front of Chiori, whose eyes crossed when she tried to look at it.

'Heads or tails?'

'Um, heads?'

The raven-haired beauty flipped the coin powerful enough that it nearly touched the ceiling, caught it skillfully and smashed it down on the table for all to see.

It was tails.

'Ok, I will do this one and you decide on the other two.' She grabbed her paper and fell back into the sofa. Said other two still looked a bit shaken from the forceful display of their fellow LoveMe worker.

' Oookay... we have here the whole voice and music training and those motorcycle and stunt classes. What do you prefer, Kyoko-sama?'

Kyoko observed how for a short moment an uneasy look crossed her friend's face and how her hand unconsciously went to her neck, when she talked about the stunt part, even when she tried to sound cheerfully.

'Ahm, I think, the stunt classes seem interesting. Music never really interested me. If that's ok with you, of course.' You see, there was really no choice, at least not for Kyoko.

'Yeah, I thought the karaoke parts in Box-R were actual a lot of fun.' the petite girl answered relieved.

'We still have half an hour before we have to go to Sawara-san.'

They didn't say anything else, but silently agreed, half an hour sitting around and relaxing would be heaven for their abused arms and shoulders.

A.N.

Thank you XxLovelyStoryxX for being my betareader. You are the best.


	3. Chapter 3

The human mind is one of the most amazing things we know and we don't even understand it. Thanks to some thousands years of evolution it's learned some cool tricks. One of the most useful ones is your first impression we get, when we meet new people. In 90 seconds we form this first impression. And damn, we are good, no great at this. After just one and an half minute, we are able to identify the character of the other person, even their intelligence and mental problems. The mood of the other periods we can recognize in least than an second. In 50 milliseconds we can see if a person is extrovert and even what kind of relationship this person wants, a long-term one or just an affair. In 100 milliseconds we know how trustworthy a person is, because in this sort period of time we decide if we would give somebody a credit. And again we are good at it. Our success rate is over 70%. And we are hell stubborn about our first impressions. I mean, really stubborn. We alternated this first impression, sure, but normally we only reinforce it and redefine it at the sidelines. We absolutely don't like to accept an impression that is antithetical to our first impression. I mean it, we hate to be wrong and just hold on to our incorrect first impression. We are like a dog with a bone and we are not letting go. But again most of the time we are correct, so all is cool. Pretty impressive, right?

And once again I tricked you into learning something.

Kyoko was nervous too meet her new trainers for the first time. She wanted to make a good first impression. What if they didn't like her and sent her away again, saying she is unacceptable. What should she wear? They are stuntmen, something cool maybe? She still had Setsu's stuff in her wardrobe. Tsuruga-san gave them to her after he argued that it's more than unlikely that he was ever going to need them himself. Her response that he could give them to his girlfriend earned her a strange look and 'Just take them.'. But she wasn't really comfortable in them as Kyoko. She would blush the whole time and try to cover herself. No Setsu's outfit was a no-go. Maybe a sports outfit? Maybe they want to know how fit she is our something. But if they don't do this she would look ridiculous, but if they do it and she doesn't have it with her she would look unprepared. She decides she won't wear it from the beginning but take it with her. But what else should she wear? Her school uniform? She will meet them in the late afternoon/early evening, after she had been at LME. In her school uniform maybe she would look to young, to naive for this training. No something else. No skirt, she would look to girly or like she is afraid to get dirty. Nothing to fashionable for the same reason, but not something completely uncool either. She will go in some jeans and a cool t-shirt.

Kyoko had all these thoughts at 5:30 in the morning before going to school. She wanted to make a good first impression. In the end all this didn't matter, because on her way from school to LME she got drenched in heavy rain and all her stuff was completely soaked. She had to go in her spar LoveMe uniform.

By the way when it started to rain Hirotaka Honda had drove past her. He even had pity with her for getting wet. He hadn't recognized her as an actress from LME or he would have gave her a lift. Not that he was better off. At the next traffic light he had to brake hard and his coffee fell over on his shirt and trousers. This day was one of those I-shouldn't-had-left-the-bed-days. It started that he only had icing cold water for his shower, then he burned his breakfast and his normal road was blocked. When he was finally at LME he got in the middle of the presidents wandering circus and was pulled along in the completely wrong direction. And before you say something, yes from time to time I will force you to follow Hirotakas epic tale of being absolutely unimportant to this story.

The address she had was a bit outside of the city in an industrial area. It was too far to go by bike even for Kyoko, so she took the metro. She got lots of strange looks and she was sure some of the other passengers missed their stop because they were too stunned by her uniform. It took some time to find the address, when it slowly but surely got darker around her. It was a motor repair shop. The garage was closed, but you could see the spare part depot though a big window. Behind it was a big open area that was surrounded by a high fence. A couple of halogen flashlights enlightened the back part of the area in a harsh, unforgiving way. Most likely it was so unforgiving to burn the souls of those who put it up. It whispers: you could have a LED lamp right now, much more environment-friendly and cheaper in its use. Yes, that's why they always make sure you look like ugly as hell, seems reasonable. Next to it was a junkyard, which seemed to bleed over. A lot of old, half-taken apart cars were standing on the sides, like a zombie-car army, waiting to be relieved. Kyoko couldn't find a bell, but a small gate in the fence was ajar. After a short moment of hesitating, she called out and entered. Well, the alternative would have been to wait in a barely lighted, a bit creepy industrial area for somebody and please let it be the right somebody to notice her. Yeah, not the most difficult decision. Nobody answered, but she could hear motor sounds from the enlightened area. She was a bit early, half an hour to be exactly.

As she got nearer, she saw three motorbikes driving close to each other and throwing some kind of bag between them. They were two guys and one girl on the bikes. One of the guys looked very tall, but it was difficult to say how tall on the motorbike. Kyoko watched in awe and fear (born form the natural self-preservation) as they were driving circle around each other. Would she learn that too? As the girl went into a curve so low that her knee was nearly touching the ground, Kyoko seriously considered turning around and leaving. No way in hell would she do this. That looked crazy and suicidal. What person in their right mind would what to do that? Answer: no one, but lucky everybody who does this isn't in their right mind. The People who mostly do this kind of stuff are completely high on their own adrenaline and serotonin. Before she could be on her way out somebody called out to her. It was a woman in a much, much too big leather jacket. Kyoko hadn't noticed her before. Mostly because she stood on the sidelines and not anywhere near the fast moving deathtraps. So thanks to the anticipated reptile part of our fantastic brain (that tells us: look at the moving stuff, the rest is boring, first me) she was registered, but ignored.

"Hey, who are you? What are you doing here? Ok, you can take a break guys." The last part was said into her headset.

"Um, I'm Kyoko Mogami from LME. I'm here for training." She was pretty sure she sounded as unconvinced as she felt. The other woman went up to her. She was nearly the same height as Kyoko, but she was much more confident than Kyoko.

"Ah. Was that today? Ok. I'm Haru. Guys come over here. We have a visitor." The three bikers stopped behind Haru and turned the motors off. The tall one dismounted first. Kyoko took her first thoughts back. He wasn't tall. He was freaking gigantic. He would dwarf Tsuruga-san next to him, by maybe one head. Kyoko took a step back. Being this tall wasn't normal. As he removed his helmet Kyoko saw that he was a westerner with brown hair and bright eyes. The exact color was difficult to say from Kyokos position.

"This is Bastiaan. We are the bosses here. We make the choreography. You better do what we tell you, got it?"

"Um, hello Bastiaan-sama. Please take care of me." She really really tried not to stare, but it was impossible. She had never seen somebody to huge. He looked as if he could smash her head with just one hand. He seemed to be in his mid to late thirties, the same age Haru appeared to be.

"2.17m." "What?" "That's how tall I am. Everybody wonders that when they first meet me." "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stare." "It's ok. I'm used to it. And no, I don't find clothes in my size." He smiled in a good natured way. Kyoko decided he may look dangerous but was very friendly. She didn't have time to talk more with him, because the other guy steped forward. He looked small and fragile next to the giant, even if he probably wasn't in a normal environment. He was definitely taller than her. He nodded politely at her as Haru introduced him.

"This is Tao. He is your mechanic and pyrotechnic. He's a little chatterbox, but don't worry since his accident it's a lot easier to ignore him." Before she could express her confusion in words, he removed his helmet and revealed some gruesome scars on his neck and jaw. To say she was a bit shocked was a bit of an understatement. "How?"

"An accident. Five or six years ago. Lost his voice and around about half of his teeth." The indifferent way Haru told her this left Kyoko very confused, but nobody seemed to care. Tao smiled at her and gestured something.

"Oh shut it, Tao."

At last the girl stepped in front of Kyoko. Her body language was dismissing as she eyed Kyoko and something seemed off with her. When she removed her helmet Kyoko was very irritated. 'She' had a very noticeable chin beard that contradicted 'her'(?) large breasts.

"Who is that? We don't need a little kid running around here." Her/his/its voice sounded male.

"Shin, stop being a bastard." Bastiaan reprimanded him(?). Kyoko decide to go with 'he' until told different. Haru answered him anyway, even when she seemed to be pissed off.

"This is Kyoko, right? She's from LME. We talked about her coming here to train." She shot a warning glare at Shin, not that he seemed to care.

"Oh fantastic. We get an actress here and we get an eyesore." The way he looked at her made sure, he wasn't just taking about the uniform.

"SHIN! What the hell is wrong with you?"

"What? Just because you thought it's a fantastic idea to get pregnant, we now need to entertain some little freak, who her agency doesn't know what to do with! I agreed to this because I thought she would look good enough to fu-" He didn't finish his sentence because Bastiaan hit him in the back of his neck.

"Shin, I mean it. Stop being an ass. I'm sorry for his behavior. He thinks he has to prove his manliness because of the amount of time he has to wear those lucky fake boobs." Bastiaan had a nice deep voice and he talked accent free. Kyokos first impression was made. She couldn't stand Shin, but the tall foreigner was nice. Shin turned around and left without apologizing. Haru was still angry and didn't even try to calm down.

"You little piece of shit. Come back here!" She stormed after him like a bull after his torero and they screamed at each other some more. The other two sighed and Kyoko just stood there and felt intimidated. She wishes herself anywhere else but here. Ok, apart from anywhere near to Sho, now that would be worst.

"Let us show you around, ok. They will need some time to calm down." Tao and Bastiaan offered her. Ok, Bastian offered Tao nodded euphoric. How could she say no to that? The chance to get away from two downright dangerous people that look ready to kill each other amd everything that can't run away fast enough. Considered that they have motorbikes Kyoko didn't see her chances to high in that race. Better get an headstart now and as a bonus she even got a guy to hide behind who looks like he could take a frontal crash with a motorbike without getting a scratche.

"Well, my home is my junkyard or my junkyard is my castle, something like this. You see, we repair and fix the cars we are going to destroy ourselves. Like Haru already said, Tao-kun here is our man for that. But we are all able to repair our babies."

They tried their best, but Kyokos mind was still on the fight she just saw. /Was that normal? Are they always talking like this with each other? I want to go home!/

"Am I causing trouble for you?" A part of her desperately wanted to answer to be yes. It would a great excuse NOT to be part of this craziness. She could go to Sawara-san and explain that it's not her fault, or something. Yes sounds fantastic!

"No no. It has nothing to do with you. We have a contract for a movie that starts in five months. The choreography is nearly done and we are now building everything we are going to crash." She tried not to walk too closely to the giant, because if you look up to somebody who's stomach is on your eye-level is a sure bet for neck ache. With Tsuruga-san it was difficult enough sometimes but with him she could at least get a clear view on his face without his chest blocking her view. Oh don't get her wrong, Tsuruga-san has a really nice chest with great muscles, very firm and nice and all. What was the subject again? Oh yeah, trying not to look at Bastiaans chest. Not that he had an ugly chest (not as nice as Tsuruga-sans, but not ugly). He had a strongman build, wide shoulders, strong torso, huge chest. Not the lean build of Tsuruga-san and not the over the top look of a bodybuilder, but like a healthy man who got his muscles from hard work. So not ugly, but still she tried to avoid looking at his chest. One, because again the neck pain and two, do you know how frustrating it is that three out of four people you meet have a bigger cup-size then you and add insult to injury only one of them is a girl.

"It wasn't really planned that Haru get pregnant and the doctor said she shouldn't drive on the bike, nevertheless doing stunts. This could cost us a bit of money. That's why we train you. Your agency pays us for this." Tao gestured something she couldn't understand. "Naa, we will first see how she is doing and if she likes it, before we talk about something like this. So don't try to talk her into something, understood? Sorry, he is talking non-stop, you can ignore most of his chatter." It was strangely fascinating how they switched between two completely different concepts of speech without even realizing it.

"I don't think that's going to be a problem for me. I first have to learn how to understand him..." "Oh right. Hmm, don't worry too much about that. It's not as if he says anything worth listening to." They started to shove each other like five-year-olds or more accurate a five-years-old and his five years older brother. It ended with Tao being in a headlock and being dragged around by Bastiaan.

"We will show you how to drive a bike. If you want you can learn how to drive a car too, but a bike is more fun. Apart from that we would take you with us in our normal work. You can tell us if you want to learn something or we see something we think you should know. How does that sound?"

"Good?" /Like you don't have a real plan what you want to do!/

"Fantastic. So you want something to drink?" He clearly intentionally ignored her uncertainty and pulled his poor friend, who took on an unhealthy color, with him to the back of the repair store.

"Ok." "Do you have any questions? It didn't need to be work-related." "Where are you from? I mean you speak Japanese very well." "I would hope so. I was born and raised here." "I'm sorry. I didn't... I thought, you were..." "It's ok. Everybody thinks that. My parents moved here before I was born. They are from the Netherlands, one of those small countries in Europe. We just have too few foreigners here."

Kyoko was still red from her mistake when Tao offered her sweet lemonade. It was a bit too sweet for her taste, but she was too polite to refuse. He had freed himself from the headlock by actually biting into Bastiaan's side. This seems to be normal behavior for them. Here she was completely wrong. This wasn't normal for them. This was their grown-up-acting-because-they-have-a-visitor-behavior, but she is going to realize her mistake with sometime around them.

"Thank you, Tao-sama." "Sama, hmm? Don't call him that. It will go up his head."

Before anyone could answer to this Haru and Shin entered, both in an absolute miserable mood, but they didn't look like the fight had gone physical.

"You showed her around already?" "A bit. The rest I want to show her when we have a bit more light to see something. I wanted to take a look at her schedule to see when she is coming by." "Ok. Do you have anything we have to worry about?" "In the morning I have high school. I can skip sometimes, but I would like to know when. If you want me to come in early, please tell me as soon as possible." "You are still in school? How old are you?" "17. Is that a problem?" "No, Just interesting. Anything else?" Once again no emergency exit for Kyoko. "Hmm acting school and of course my drama shoot, that schedule is always a bit different, oh and Wednesday afternoon I have a regular part. Apart from that I only work at LME and at the restaurant, but those two are very flexible and shouldn't be a problem." She was met with lots of raised eyebrows.

"At last we know you don't have a boyfriend." "What?" "There is no way you would have time for one. Write down your schedule for the next three weeks and I will send it back to you with your times here." While she wrote down everything, Tao seemed to ask something. "Oh, he wants to know what drama you are shooting." "It's called Box-R. The first episodes were aired just a short time ago. I play Natsu in it." "Nice. Ok where are you living? One of us is dropping you off." When they heard her address they all looked at Shin. He on the other hand looked at her as if she was some kind of disgusting worm.

"If I have to," Then he turned around and left. When he was out of the door he called back. "Coming? I'm not going to wait for you." "Ah, good bye everyone. I'm happy to work with you." She bowed to the other three and hurried after her ride.

"Here put on the helmet." "We are going by bike?" This worried her a lot. She wasn't ready for that. She first wanted to watch some more before going near one of those things. "Of course. Now hurry, I don't have all night." Kyoko swallowed uneasy, but put on the helmet and took place behind Shin. He didn't care that he had a bike novice behind him. Ok, that's wrong he did care and drove extra risky. Accordingly shaken Kyoko jumped from the bike when she was home. This ride and the time she was forced to spend close to Shin were on her comfort scale on the same level with a very mean mosquito bite on the ass, that you couldn't scratch because it would look very rude.

"Stop being such a nuisance. I will most likely drop you off a lot in the next time." His voice and eyes were cold as he gave Kyoko one last glare. He made sure to let her know that her antipathy was a two-way road.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Both looked irritated around. Where did that even come from?

It was Hirotaka. His suboptimal day ended with his key being broke in two in the lock. It was impossible that anyone had a worst day than him today. He was sure about that.

You know may ask yourself: did Kyoko for a wrong first impression from Shin, like it was hinted at the beginning of the chapter? No, he is a sexist asshole and, you don't know it yet, with a terrible unfunny sense of humor. Nevertheless Kyoko and you with her have to get used to him.

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Not My best chapter but sometimes this interducing chapters are needed... Thank you XxLovelyStoryXx for betaing this chapter.

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